One more time…

OUR EGOS ARE IN CONTROL OF OUR MINDS AND ARE CAUSING OUR OUT-OF-BALANCE THOUGHTS AND EMOTIONS TO RULE WHO WE ARE!

How many times do we need to hear this before it really sinks in? Sometimes we may have to hear it over and over again to finally learn how to release the ego’s power over who we are!

Next…

WE ARE LOSING OUR PRECIOUS MOMENTS OF NOW BY FOCUSING OUR THOUGHTS ON PAST GARBAGE LIKE FEAR, ANGER, RESENTMENT AND OUR INABILITY TO FORGIVE AND MOVE ON!!

Why??? When are we going to get it? Another thing…we are living for tomorrow with the assumption that our current problems will be gone and our lives, we assume, will be happier. If so, what is happening to the present? Are we missing it? Is it being overshadowed by anxiety or the illusive hopes that our lives will be happier when such times as our kids are out of the house, or when we don’t have to go to this unsatisfying job any more, or when our mortgage is paid off? Whatever it is that we are anticipating that will bring us more contentment than we are presently experiencing, if we do not change our thinking NOW then these “whens” will simply be replaced with other “whens”. We will continually believe that we will be happier later on. Wherever it is that our thoughts are taking us, we are missing the present!

Are you getting fed up with the restlessness, the anxieties and the constant dreaming for better times? If so, then CHANGE YOUR THINKING!!! CHANGE IT NOW! The present time is the only time that is available to us, and it is for this moment that we need to be grateful!

I spoke to an incredible senior citizen a while back about to what she attributes her positive attitude, her optimistic outlook on life, and her brilliant smile. She shared with me her secret: She stated that she wakes up each morning and makes the conscious decision and verbal affirmation, “Today I choose happiness.” How profound is that?! How can so simple a statement contain so much wisdom, power and love? How many of us can have the courage to proclaim such a statement to ourselves and then truly live by it? Can you? Is happiness a conscious choice? I believe it is! This courageous person shared with me that she has experienced several difficult experiences throughout her life; yet through each challenge, she chose happiness. I walked away from my time with this special lady a changed person. She is a living example of how our attitude and outlook on life are our own individual choices to make, and how they can make our lives positive, loving and worth living or, conversely, a cross to bear.

So, does a statement such as this: “I choose happiness” seem possible in your life? Can you say it now? Can you step aside from your current problems and challenges and look at yourself in the mirror and say that you choose happiness? All that we truly have is the present moment, and we can choose to see happiness in this moment or we can look at life as one continuous problem after another that we have to overcome. No one can do it for us! We must make the continuous effort to see our current problems as situations that we need to learn from, lessons that our souls CHOSE to experience in order for us to remember who we are. These situations were not forced on us…they are gifts offered to us to grow more loving, more patient, more understanding individuals.

Our families need us, our friends need us, our planet needs us! Are we up for the challenge? Can we use our precious life energy in a focused, loving way that can help create peace in our lives and peace in our world? I think we can!

It is of vital importance to observe our minds (thoughts AND emotions) in order to begin to live more consciously and fully in the Now. Self-observation and introspection enable us to evolve into more loving, peaceful beings. In order to remember who we are, we must look at ourselves under a microscope and honestly accept what we see, observing where our thoughts are and how we deal with our emotions. It is only through this conscious self-introspection that we can view ourselves as the ‘witnessing presence’ which is the ‘watcher of the thinker’. This is the point of perception where our Higher Selves continually observe the activities going on both in our thoughts and our emotions. Whether we consciously know we are doing this or not, it is happening constantly. It is very important to remember to view ourselves with loving, non-judging eyes, because if we find fault with ourselves or feel guilty about the chatter going on in our heads, then we are simply continuing on in the duality thinking and will not be able to make the necessary changes within ourselves.

So, before we go on, we need to discuss briefly how we can change these ingrained patters of rampant thoughts and emotions and learn to understand our minds and how they work. The first step is that we must understand the basic mechanics of living UNconsciously, which is when we define who we are through our thoughts and emotions, allowing the mind to control our lives, thus creating a false self or ego as a substitute for our true self. When this occurs, we become as a ‘branch cut off from the vine’ where the ego’s needs are endless and keep us living in a state of constant fear and want. When we truly begin to grasp how this dysfunction operates, we can then begin to detach from this ego or illusory sense of self and learn to disconnect from the many fears, problems and traumas in our lives that seem to define who we are. It isn’t until we recognize where our minds are that we can begin to make changes within ourselves and learn to live more consciously. Our minds generally want to escape the Now by thinking that either the past or the future will be better than the present…if the imagined future appears better, it gives us hope and anticipation…if it is imagined worse, it creates more anxiety and fear.

BOTH ARE ILLUSIONS!!!

By living more consciously, a higher dimension of presence comes into our lives automatically. The moment we realize that we are not present, we ARE present! Whenever we are able to observe our minds, we are no longer trapped in them! It is that simple…it just takes awareness!!! Awareness takes effort at first, but with trust, perseverance and determination, living consciously the majority of the time is truly possible.

The following are simple reminders:

Click on image to view in full size.

All of these reminders help us to live more consciously in the Now and enable us to step out of past and future fears and introduce more presence into our lives. Once we can feel what it means to truly be present, it becomes much easier to simply choose to step out of the time dimension whenever it is needed for practical purposes and move more deeply into the Now.

This leads us into the discussion of how we can change our attitudes and perspectives on what is ‘time’ and what role it plays in our ability to stay conscious and present as much as possible.

The following statement is the key:

Time and mind are inseparable!

To be identified with your mind is to be trapped in time…the compulsion to live almost exclusively through memory and anticipation. This creates an endless preoccupation with past and future and an unwillingness to honor and acknowledge the present moment and simply allow it to be. The compulsion arises because the past gives you an identity and the future holds the promise of salvation and fulfillment. BOTH ARE ILLUSIONS!!! Thus, it is important to end the delusion of time!

Many people say, “Time is something so very precious”, but time isn’t precious at all because it is an illusion. What we perceived as precious is not time but the one point that is out of time: the NOW…that is precious indeed! The more we are focused on time (past and future), the more we miss the Now, the most precious thing there is. Why is it the most precious thing? Because it is the ONLY thing…it’s all there is. The eternal present is the space within which our whole life unfolds, the one factor that remains constant. Life is NOW…there was never a time when our life was NOT now, now will there ever be.

Often times, we think the past and future are even more real than the present since the past determines who we are and how we behave in the present, and future goals determine what actions we take in the present. This is very challenging for us to undersatnd because we are using our ‘minds’ to try to grasp this; however, ask yourselves the following questions: Have you ever experienced, done, thought or felt anything outside of the Now? Do you think you ever will? Is it possible for anything to happen or be out the Now? Of course not! Nothing ever happened in the past…it happened in the NOW! Nothing will ever happen in the future…it will happen in the Now.

What we think of as the past is a memory trace, stored in the mind, of a former Now. When we remember the past, we reactivate a memory trace of an event. Also, the future is an imaged Now, a projection of the mind. When the future comes, it comes as the Now. When we think about the future, we do it now. Past and future obviously have no reality of their own…just as the moon has no light of its own but can only reflect the light of the sun…so are past and future only pale reflections of the light, power and reality of the eternal present. The essence of this is difficult to be understood by the mind; however, once we grasp it, there is a shift in consciousness from mind to Being, from time to presence. Suddenly everything feels alive, radiates energy and emanates Being.

If you have ever been in a life threatening or emergency situation, you are aware that there is a shift in consciousness from ‘time’ to ‘presence’ that happens immediately and naturally. The personality that has a past and a future momentarily recedes and is replaced by an intense conscious presence, that of being very still but very alert at the same time. Whatever response is needed then arises out of that state of consciousness.

Similarly, many people love to engage in dangerous activities such as mountain climbing or car racing because it keeps them in the constant state of Now, that intensely alive state that is free of time, free of problems, free of thinking. Slipping away from the present moment even for a second for them may mean death, so the totally conscious state that is required is exhilaration! That energy is powerful and this desired state is available to all of us, without having to climb to the top of El Capitan! We simply have to BE present!

Since ancient times, spiritual masters of all traditions have pointed to the Now as the key to the spiritual dimension. In church you may have heard the saying, “Nobody who puts his hands to the plow and looks back is fit for the Kingdom of God.” Also, the whole essence of Zen consists of walking along the razor’s edge of Now, to be so utterly, so completely present that no problem, no suffering, nothing that is not WHO YOU ARE in your essence can survive in you. A similar question in the Zen tradition is, “If not now, when?” Finally, Rumi, the great Sufi poet and teacher declared “Past and future veil God from our sight; burn up both of them in fire.” We have all been exposed to many, many lessons and teachings that have stressed the importance of living the present moment, but how many of us truly are able to live and apply this awareness into our lives on a daily basis? We must be honest with ourselves…do we live and accept ourselves in the present NOW or do we depend on our past experiences or our future dreams to mold our present days?

Clock Time Vs. Psychological Time…

Just as there is a place for mind and mind knowledge in the practical realm of day-to-day living, we also need to know how to use time in the practical aspects of our lives. Keeping track of time for daily appointments and activities is of course important, but we must be wary when it takes over all aspects of our lives. There are two types of ‘time’ that we must be aware of: ‘clock time’ and ‘psychological time’. The enlightened person’s main focus of attention is always the Now, but they are still peripherally aware of time, which means they continue to use clock time but are free of psychological time.

Clock time is used for the practical aspects of our lives. Clock time is not just making an appointment or planning a trip. It includes learning from the past so that we don’t repeat the same mistakes over and over. Knowledge that we have attained through past experiences is also using ‘clock time’. It is thus when we are able to make choices, based on learning from prior experiences. Similarly, when we set a goal for ourselves and work toward it, we are using clock time. We are aware of where we want to go, but we honor and give our fullest attention to the step that we are taking at this moment. However, if we become excessively focused on the goal, perhaps because we are seeking happiness or fulfillment in it, the Now is no longer honored and it becomes reduced to a mere stepping stone to the future. Then we are no longer using clock time. THE PRESENT MOMENT REMAINS THE ESSENTIAL FACTOR: when any lesson from the past becomes relevant and the knowledge of the experience is applied to the Now, ‘clock time’ is being honored.

‘Psychological time’ is identification with the past and continuous compulsive projection into the future. It is when we lose all touch with the present moment, and when our identity, value and purpose is only based on what we have done or what we will be doing later, what we look like or what we are thinking or feeling. If life’s journey is no longer an adventure or seen as beautiful but is an obsessive need to arrive, to attain or to ‘make it’, then psychological time or past and future identification rules who you are.

Be alert as you practice this so that you do not unwittingly transform clock time into psychological time. For example, if you made a mistake in the past and learn from it now, you are using clock time. On the other hand, if you dwell on it mentally, and self-criticism, remorse, or guilt come up, then you are making the mistake into ‘me’ and ‘mine’: you make it part of your sense of self, and it has become psychological time, which is always linked to a false sense of identity. Nonforgiveness necessarily implies a heavy burden of psychological time.

You will not have any doubt that psychological time is a mental disease if you look at its collective consciousness manifestations. They occur, for example, in the form of ideologies such as communism or rigid religious belief systems which operate under the implicit assumption that the highest good lies in the future and that therefore the end justifies the means. The end is an idea, a point in the mind-projected future, when salvation in whatever form (happiness, fulfillment, equality, etc.) will be attained. As an example, it is estimated that as many as 50 million people were murdered to further the cause of communism, to bring about a ‘better world’ in Russia, China and other countries. This is a chilling example of how belief in a future heaven creates a present hell. Can there be any doubt that psychological time is a serious and dangerous mental illness?

How does this mind pattern operate in your life? Are you always trying to get somewhere other than where you are? Is most of your ‘doing’ just a means to an end? Is fulfillment always just around the corner or confined to short-lived pleasures such as drink, drugs, or thrills and excitement? Are you always focused on becoming, achieving, and attaining? Do you believe that if you acquire more things you will become more fulfilled or psychologically complete?

In the normal, mind-identified or unenlightened state of consciousness, the power and creative potential that lies concealed in the Now is completely obscured by psychological time. Your life then loses its vibrancy and sense of wonder. The old patterns of thought, emotion, behavior, reaction and desire are acted out in endless repeat performances, a script in your mind that gives you an identity of sorts but covers up the reality of the Now. The mind then creates an obsession with the future as an escape from the unsatisfactory present.

If you are currently experiencing a very challenging set of experiences that make you believe that the future HAS to be better than this present state, you must realize that the future is generally a replica of the past! Superficial changes are possible of course, but REAL transformation depends upon whether you can become present enough to dissolve the past by accessing and accepting the Now. What you perceive as future is an intrinsic part of your state of consciousness now, and chances are you will experience more of the same unless the quality of you consciousness NOW is altered.

So….if it is the quality of your consciousness at this moment that determines the future, then what is it that determines the quality of your consciousness? It is your degree of presence!!! Therefore, the ONLY place where true change can occur and where the past can be dissolved is the NOW!!!

Omnia in numeris sita sunt

Numerology has had the misfortune of being coined a ‘New Age’ fad often associated with limited value and sensationalism. Next to the fortune teller gazing into her crystal ball and stealing money from honest fun-seeking families at the fair, one would expect to see the numerologist ready to profit from the trusting nature of the spiritually curious. That is, of course, unless you’ve actually read about the history of numerology, the power of numbers, the mystic connection between them and the sacred geometry left behind on this planet by the most powerful civilizations known to this orbit. If you’ve ever explored the truth of numbers before, you will know that there is great potency in their messages.

Numerology is not about predicting the future because WE shape the future with every choice we make. Understand this statement. Every choice you make in every moment you are given impacts how the next moment will be. If you go to a tarot card reader and ask for your future to be revealed to you, you may get lucky enough to come across a powerfully skilled card reader who will be able to read the cards correctly but even then, all the reader is able to do is tell you how your future looks in this moment in time. The instant you make a new choice – even as simple as where you will go for lunch after your reading – your future will look different in some way.

Numerology is about understanding how specific encoded vibrations have the potential to impact you and your dynamic energetic pattern.

Symbols are everywhere. They are all around us. All we have to do is WAKE UP, open our eyes (all of them!) and start paying attention! The name that we chose for ourselves is significant. The date and time when we decided to be born is significant. Even the countries, cities and streets where we decide to live have a huge impact on what happens in our lives.

Everything has an energetic vibration. These words you are reading now have a specific resonance. The room you’re in right now has a particular energy. Even the clothes you’re wearing and the sheets on your bed are attuned to a certain vibration and all of these levels of energy affect us when we come in contact with them.

Have you ever considered why you dislike it so much when people call you by a certain name, or how come you don’t like driving down certain streets, or what the reason is for the fact that you’ve always wanted to visit a particular country?

Energy.

Letters and numbers have power. Their specific combinations create unique vibrations. Opening yourself up to the ancient wisdom of the language of numbers could allow you to reveal answers to questions you only knew to ask in your deepest dreams. Now you can remember the answers. And rest assured, you have the answers.

As long as you can add, you can be a student of numerology. In an attempt to make numerology easier to understand, I’ve broken it down into two main categories: Numerology of Your Birth and Numerology of Your Name.

Numerology of Your Birth

The analysis of the numbers related to your birth reveals fundamental encoded information that you carry with you from the beginning of your life. This information includes the reason why you decided to be born at the exact moment when you entered into this world, the explanations of what your mission is in this life and what tools you came with in order to fulfill your plan.

Numerology of Your Name

Name analysis is one way for you to be able to decode a dominant energy that deeply impacts you in this life. You carry your name with you from the beginning until the end. It may change throughout your life, and that in itself is significant, but the influence of the energy of your name is a very important factor in your spiritual evolution. You chose your name long before you came to this life with a very specific intention. Aren’t you at least a little curious about what that intention might be?

Have a look at this page for more information…

The day is everyday and any day is today. One day is all that exists. Each day we live the same day and see differently. The same morning, the same air, the same time ticking away into the same worries and doubts. Time is man made and man is made of time. Today you may think that the sun was warm and tomorrow the sky too wet, yet it is the same day each day, seen through eyes of a different observer.

When we see, we think of the meanings. When we think, we create stories. When we doubt, we question our imagination and once our heart is scared enough that it closes, the colors fade and the lights dim and the day becomes night. Do you feel like you’re in the dark?

Sitting in a room with no lights, it’s easy to see black. Slowly, your eyes open wider from the inside and you begin to see that the dark is as colorful as the day. Each day is light and each day is dark. Each day we see varying levels of colors and shadows that make up new experiences and bring us into new levels of the rainbow.

Each day is the same. We live the same day each day through different eyes, eyes that open wider from the inside. Do you believe in rainbows when you look into the sky after a spring storm and can almost reach out and touch the arch of color smeared across the clouds? Can you feel the moment in the middle of the day when you experienced yesterday and the day before and you walk by it today and feel it coming again tomorrow? Each day is the same day, and all that changes is our choice of how we want to see it.

What do you do when you feel that yesterday is today and tomorrow was now? How can you walk by the opportunity tomorrow that came to you so suddenly yesterday and not wait impatiently for it to be revealed? Feeling is not knowing and believing is wishing. Feeling is being in the moment when tomorrow is today and yesterday was now. How can you be afraid of not knowing when you already have the answer? The simplest is the answer you won’t see because you want it to be in tomorrow.

“Rei meaning “a ray of light” or “universal soul” and Ki meaning “universal life force energy” or “radiating energy”.

When the Japanese characters are combined, they present the concept of “universal life-force energy”.

The history of Reiki is a story of a man discovering his ability to connect to a powerful source of energy and transferring it through himself to others.  Over time, Reiki has become known to many as a healing art.  People associate it with a therapy that involves the ‘laying of hands’ on the body and healing physical ailments.  In many ways, these things are true, but Reiki encompasses much more, and you will learn as you begin to experience the process, that there are many unspoken benefits that must simply be experienced in order to be understood.

What Reiki Does

Reiki works on all levels affecting us. It will naturally begin to assist you in releasing limiting belief structures about yourself and the world around you. Instead of dwelling in the past or worrying about the future, you begin to embrace every aspect of the now and live in the moment. Emotional outbursts stabilize, and you become less vulnerable to the shifts of your ego personality. Your motives and the motives of others become clearer, and you better understand how things happen for a reason. Your thoughts don’t run aimlessly in your mind and you learn how to focus energy specifically on those thoughts that you want to become your reality. Those affected by increased flows of energy often choose to no longer allow fear to run their lives and they gradually detach from dependencies.

When you integrate your mind, body and spirit into one harmonious flow of energy, you begin to leave behind the fears and ego-centred motives of a world of pain, and enter into a higher state of consciousness that brings health and prosperity to all facets of your life.

Physically:

Reiki speeds the mending and recovery process.

Why?
Everything is energy. Your body is simply energy. If there is a blockage through which energy cannot flow freely, an imbalance exists. Your body will (at first) gently tell you that you have created an imbalance by exhibiting pain. When you sense pain, you can choose to ignore it or to heal it. You can also choose to recognize that your body has communicated an imbalance, and with the ability to tap into a greater flow of energy, you can choose to rebalance yourself. When you bring balance back to yourself, any imbalance that existed is released.

Mentally:

Reiki relieves stress (stress=imbalance), and softens a crisis mentality by alleviating the mental pressure without losing the integral importance of the lesson.

What does that mean?
You will see things differently. You will begin to see a bigger picture of any situation: your point of view, the perspective of others, and any other factors that are involved in any situation. You will understand why you are creating your thoughts, the way they develop and how to identify them consciously before you freely release them. You will notice that you have more choice about what you think and do because you will be able to approach any situation at a slower speed (so to speak) and decide what to do before you are in the middle of things and feel like there is no way out.

You will understand why people act the way they do. You will find it easier to be compassionate and understanding. You will catch yourself in a moment of wakelessness and see that you always have the choice to do what benefits the Highest Good. You will ultimately be able to understand why things happen the way they do, and what you can learn from every experience.

Emotionally:

Reiki helps to resolve tangled emotions and purifies your emotional state of being.

Why?
Your emotions are a very big part of who you are. Sometimes it’s tricky to maintain a balanced emotional state, and there are even people who ‘loose their mind’ because they let their emotions run wild. Reiki helps harmonize emotions in two ways. When participating in a session, you subconsciously train your thoughts to calm your emotions. This will allow you to identify your emotions clearly, sensing which feel right and which feel out of place. The unconscious process that takes place when you tap into a more powerful energy flow also works on balancing you while you sleep. The process is gentle and healing.

Spiritually:

Reiki opens us to the presence of the divine. Aligning us with our spirits is one of Reiki’s most profound affects. The process attunes us to our own spiritual being and puts us in harmony with the Creative power.

What does that mean?
This is the most abstract benefit of Reiki. To explain this concept, let us work from the outside in. You have a body, but you are not your body. When you have a feeling about something, or when a creative idea comes into your mind it is not because your finger or your knee told you so. Thoughts of inspiration and guidance come from a very special place. They come from the real you, that little voice inside of you that is heard only when you are still enough to listen. Reiki creates a clearer connection to the real you, connecting you more closely to your spiritual self.

The beneficial affects of Reiki are only limited by the person who is receiving. When you realize the limitless potential of Reiki, there is nothing that can prevent you from achieving what you now see as the impossible.

When I came to the realization – not the understanding but rather the ‘knowing’ – that I am not my body but instead that I AM a limitless, boundless, and timeless SOUL living a human experience, everything else started to make sense…including ‘Nothing Matters’.

‘Nothing Matters’ encompasses the concept of attachment. For example, if you believe that you are nothing without that perfect person, if you believe that you are worthless and would never be able to get along in this world without that perfect man or woman, what you are really saying is that you are attached to the idea of the perfect dependable partner because you do not believe that you are limitless, boundless and self-sufficient, totally powerful in your own right. Through this attachment, you have empowered this idea or this person by giving up your own power. If instead, you apply the concept of nothing matters, than all the fears that lead you to believe that you need someone else to survive disappear. You no longer spend time considering what would happen if you were alone, because the idea of ‘alone’ wouldn’t even exist – you would see it as another cry from your ego to make you afraid.

Our Souls are trapped in a time/space reality just for the benefit of experience. By applying ‘Nothing Matters’, the experience of being here becomes not only bearable but actually peaceful.

Resistance is released.
Passion surfaces.
Purpose is uncovered.

Does purpose matter? That is your choice. The concept of ‘nothing matters’ says only one thing: you make your own choices. Other people’s judgments don’t matter. Your judgments don’t matter. Your choice is made regardless of whether you doubt yourself or not. Nothing matters because this is all an illusion. I am not fat and short. I am so much more encompassing than that. I am not female and blond. My skin color is not me. None of that matters.

“Nothing Matters” opens your EYES to everything around you, not just what you see in front of your nose, or on your schedule for the day. ‘Nothing Matters’ represents a consciousness or an understanding that we are all limitless beings, capable of anything and everything!!

All you have to do is decide what you want to do with the power that is yours. Do you choose to empower manifestations of fear or do you choose another path? There is no right or wrong because in fact…nothing matters! Judgments…nope, they don’t matter!

We are only observers, because the real experiencer, the real thinker is our Soul, going through local space, and past, present, and future time experiences to grow and to evolve. Our body, physical, mental, and emotional, our mind and intelligence are only the tools of the soul to get that experience. I say ‘only’ because to give these things more credit would empower them while taking power away from me.

Let me for a moment get into the topic of free will versus destiny.

It may seem like a contradiction to say that we have free will to create our existences but at the same time, before we came here we decided to go through specific situations that we cannot now choose not to go through. Let’s look at this for a minute. Assuming that this is what actually happened, and that we did in fact agree to experience some predetermined things in this life, it is important to understand to what we actually agreed. We only agreed to take part in the experience. We did not predetermine how we are to experience the experience. In other words:

We always have the choice to decide how we want to respond to experience.

That is the key in determining how our existence unfolds. Empower yourself by owning your choices, taking command of your journey. None of this matters because essentially we will all get to the end result. The question is only how you CHOOSE to get there. If you choose to take a passive role and see yourself as indestructible because the ending is inevitable, that is your choice. Take a moment if you wish and just remember that for each cause, there is an effect. You are free to make your choices, but ignorance of their consequences is not a defense. It is up to you how you choose to live your life.

Only you look through your eyes.
Only you see the world the way you do.

If you choose to see yourself as being harmed, then that will be your reality. On the other hand, if you choose not to see yourself as harmed, your thoughts and perceptions will accommodate this alternate reality for you. Nothing that you experienced matters in the end whether you see yourself as harmed or not. Nothing matters. Even the choice that you make about whether you are hurt or not doesn’t matter because the way you define yourself here is not an all-encompassing definition of who you are.

It is about perception.
It is about experience.
Have fun with life!! Enjoy it!! Life is not a serious thing….it’s freedom if you choose to look at it that way.
Always your choice…

I read somewhere recently that it’s official: we, as a globally connected society, have become more of an energetic culture than a physically-based culture. The sentiment stimulated many responses from me. Most of all, it made me feel better about myself! The life I lead is becoming more and more electronic and less rooted in the material world. The vastness, the openness and the limitlessness of the World Wide Web and of the technology that supports it and nurtures it is intoxicatingly tempting in which to immerse myself when I compare the alternative – to engage in a world where it still takes hours to get from point A to Point B, where the air is smelling increasingly ‘funny’, and where people are loosing their patience much more quickly then they seemed to 20 years ago (…kind of sounds like a description of Neo’s world…).

The statement also made me wonder how communication will look in the future. Is it all going to be digital? Is sex ‘caveman style’ becoming an extinct pastime as its newer, real-time, instant and anonymous counterpart takes center-stage? Even peering into the neighborhood cafe freaks me out! People are still drinking coffee but instead of making eye contact with other humans(!!), laughing at jokes and talking about whatever it is that people at coffee shops used to talk about, they’re ALL staring into sleek little laptops!

Becoming an energetic culture is the most amazingly connected yet disjointed reality I can imagine. From one perspective, we can reach out and connect with people from across the globe in an instant and build relationships that would otherwise have been very difficult to cultivate. On the other hand, we still (at least partially) exist on a material plane where things are physical and can be touched and can touch back. Social etiquette aside, how are we supposed to evolve as a physical race if we are investing more and more energy in the virtual?